


wherever I go, your ghost follows

by dastardly



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:46:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28265622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dastardly/pseuds/dastardly
Summary: Nicole takes her by the hand. For a few minutes, she won’t let go.
Relationships: Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught
Comments: 37
Kudos: 151





	wherever I go, your ghost follows

**Author's Note:**

> Woke up and had a feelings party. Picks up after 4x06. Take this away from me please.

The morning is shivery and cold. Waverly wants to stay under her pile of blankets, wrapped snugly in a warm embrace. The early hour chill is something she can smell, the tip of her nose frozen and achy. She turns within loose arms and hides her face in the comfort of Nicole’s steady chest.

She burrows her nose into Nicole’s throat and laughs softly. “Engaged,” she whispers.

Nicole shifts against her, rolls them so the length of her body drapes over Waverly’s. “Is it real?” Nicole asks, voice groggy and roughened from sleep.

Waverly’s hand searches for Nicole’s and their fingers twist together by her waist until the ring on Nicole’s finger clinks against Waverly’s.

Months have passed, but Nicole forgets sometimes that her reality is no longer a dream that will slip away when she finds the will to open her eyes, which means Nicole likes to keep her eyes closed in the mornings, likes to lay on her a little longer and Waverly is content to let her. She knows Nicole will take the greatest pleasure when her eyes finally flutter open and Waverly is still there, still in their bed, still in love.

It used to make Waverly feel helpless. The way Nicole blamed herself, the way she believed Waverly would not want her after what she’d done. And what she’d done was a tough pill to swallow. No one said much about it. Communication was hardly their strong suit, though Wynonna made it clear that Nicole did what she had to, looked Doc in the eye when she’d said it, too. A warning not to make her friend feel even guiltier for the deal that brought them all back: his life for the sisters.

Waverly studies Nicole’s face, her lips, her nose, her lashes, the furrow in her brow that is there more often than not, and she considers how no one apart from Wynonna has loved her so completely.

Nicole welcomed darkness into her moral soul for her, and though it’s conflicting to be loved this way, Waverly loves just as completely.

She called death into her hands to drag Nicole back to her.

One life for Nicole’s life. She’d do it again. Can't imagine a world where she didn't. And what does that say?

“Are you real?” Nicole asks.

Waverly squeezes the hand in hers.

“Why don’t you open your eyes and check.”

Nicole turns her face against Waverly’s chest. “No,” she grumbles. She turns her face again, nuzzling between Waverly’s breasts, and Waverly has to let go of Nicole’s hand to cup her face and press kisses to her chin, her nose, her lidded eyes.

The alarm goes off and they both groan, Waverly rolling them over again so she can reach the bedside table and hit the snooze button. She collapses across Nicole’s body and stays there as Nicole’s breathing evens out.

They’ve all been so busy. Nicole has taken up the mantle of Sheriff again, swamped with red tape and paperwork among all the local cases that Holt never handled. The job demands time, resources and manpower as Nicole tries and tries to regain her footing because everyone is looking to her to get Purgatory back in order, back to normal. If that's a thing it ever was.

On the flipside, Waverly has her interview with the new heads of Black Badge at their headquarters in the city to be reinstated as an agent.

Wynonna and Doc barely talk these days and Jeremy is so falsely chipper all the time it’s obvious he’s throwing himself into his new role to avoid whatever it is that happened with Robin that he won’t tell anyone about.

Rachel makes it easier. She strolls by with that chip on her shoulder and they all have to keep their eye on her, but the easiness she offers spreads laughter in every room she enters. She banters with Wynonna, pesters Doc, is affronted by Nicole’s protective attention, though the one time Nicole tried to back off a little, Waverly found Rachel hovering more than usual.

When Waverly pointed it out, Nicole was so delighted that she slung her arm over Rachel’s shoulders and ruffled her hair with so much affection that Rachel threatened to sleep out in the barn.

If Rachel raced Wynonna for the seat next to Nicole on the other side of Waverly for movie night though, no one really mentioned it.

Except for maybe a whiskey-swigging, grumbling Wynonna, muttering, “No fair, best friends,” as she parked herself in the armchair after swiping a bag of chips out of Jeremy’s hands.

Waverly has her interview at 9 AM, it will be about a two-hour drive. She has to leave by 7. She glares at the clock. When it’s five minutes past 6, she untangles herself from Nicole’s slack arms and gets out of bed.

She slips on a robe in case anyone else is awake this early and heads to the bathroom. The hot water takes a while to heat up on such cold mornings so Waverly turns it on first thing, then begins washing her face at the sink.

It’s as she’s squeezing a bit of mint paste onto her toothbrush that she hears the soft footfalls of Nicole’s sock-covered feet coming down the hall, wooden floorboards squeaking.

There’s a pause by the bathroom door, then a gentle knock. Waverly smiles.

She never locks the door. She thinks with only having one bathroom in the house, it’s a bit cruel, so she leaves it open, and everyone has learned to knock if the door is shut so Waverly can make herself decent or jump into the shower and pull the curtain closed, then Wynonna or Rachel or Nicole can just relieve themselves or brush their teeth and leave.

Sometimes Nicole surprises her in the mornings and joins her in the shower.

“Come in.”

The door creaks open to reveal Nicole in her sweats and white tee, hand combing through her long red hair all messy-like as she slumps into the entryway, crossing her arms. She stares at Waverly like this is solely what she has come here to do. Waverly turns away, starts brushing her teeth.

That look on Nicole’s face scares her every time, makes her think of doing something stupid like canceling every plan she’s ever made to stand in front of Nicole for as long as it takes.

Nicole shuffles in and lifts the lid on the toilet. She pauses. She doesn’t pee very often in front of Waverly, but it’s been known to happen.

“Is it okay – ”

“Yes.” Waverly’s voice muffles around her toothbrush, but Nicole smiles gratefully and pushes her sweats down as she sits. She hunches forward, elbows on her knees, head in her hands as she pees, looking tired, like she might even tumble off the toilet and go to sleep right there on the bathmat.

They both got in so late last night, Nicole coming in after everyone. She’s so committed to this town, to its people. She works herself to the bone and when she returns to Waverly, she always showers before she crawls into bed because she knows Waverly will strip the bedsheets to put them in the laundry the next morning if they sleep in them dirty.

Waverly tells her over and over she doesn’t mind, that if some nights, like last night, when it’s late, she’d understand Nicole collapsing into bed with her, halfway out of her uniform, but Nicole always tries so hard to be pleasing, to not be a burden, and while Waverly will never admit this, sometimes she wants Nicole to fall to pieces in her arms.

To crash into her and sully her with her pain.

Nicole had climbed into their bed and wrapped herself around Waverly like another one of her blankets and when Waverly turned to greet her with a sweet kiss, Nicole had answered it like she always does.

Tired and weary, Nicole had found energy to fuck her slow and hard and deep until Waverly had to slam her fist into their headboard, grab on, and cover her own mouth to keep quiet.

Nicole fell asleep after, lips parted against the side of her neck, soft puffs of breath tickling Waverly’s sweaty skin, fading quickly away into sleep while Waverly recovered from her orgasm.

Waverly had laid there clutching at Nicole’s back, not knowing why she wanted so badly to cry.

It still baffles her that someone like Nicole exists, who aims to put all of Waverly’s needs first.

Waverly glances at the love of her life in the bathroom mirror. She leans down and spits, rinses her mouth, puts her toothbrush in its holder, then slips her robe off, hanging it on the towel rack.

Nicole doesn’t look up at her, it’s a politeness Nicole still keeps when she comes into the bathroom. She’s probably waiting for Waverly to get in the shower before she reaches for the toilet paper, shy about sharing this tender space together.

The bathroom is starting to steam a bit so she heads for the shower, but not without a meaningful brush of her hand under Nicole’s chin as she walks by, and she’s already pulling the curtain open to step inside when Nicole takes her by the hand.

Waverly blinks, turns curiously to see Nicole with her head still bent, and without warning, Waverly is tugged, naked and all, onto Nicole’s bare lap. Her mouth falls open and she lifts Nicole’s chin to see there are tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Oh, baby,” Waverly hushes, wiping away her tears. “Baby, I’m so sorry.”

She apologizes for nothing in particular, just the world sometimes. Nicole shakes her head like she can’t believe this is happening.

“Sorry,” Nicole rushes out. “I’m sorry.”

Waverly lets her be sorry, too, the world and all. 

“Come here,” she says and pulls Nicole’s face firmly to her chest, stroking down her back over the soft cotton of Nicole’s shirt, cupping the nape of her neck with her other hand, letting her fingers drift up into Nicole’s hair to hold and squeeze Nicole to her.

Nicole runs her hands all over Waverly’s body, one up and down her side, the other traveling her bare knee, up her stomach, cupping her breast, her shoulder, feeling skin, warmth and life.

“I just love you, that’s it,” Nicole croaks out. “I just love you and you’re here, that’s all.”

“I’m here because you love me,” Waverly says, thinking on how Nicole has always held doors open for her.

How Nicole held open a door for her back to earth, to the life she had made for herself, how grateful she is someone loves her with such decency and such deference that it turns into a force of its own – straight like an arrow, deadly and to the point.

When they get married and make their vows, Waverly knows Nicole can honor them, can tend to them, will never break them, would break the world instead.

The vows would sooner break Nicole. It haunts Waverly.

She’s become witness to how Nicole can be broken, how her fists can curl so tight they need to be pried back to open, how time can bend the steel of her spine, how loss can pierce the armor over her heart and crack through the defenses of her mind.

Waverly looks at the clock: 6:10 AM.

She rearranges the morning. She can sit here on a toilet with the woman of her dreams for ten more minutes if she skips breakfast, if she just grabs a pear and her jar of macadamia nuts on her way out. And if she makes her shower quicker than she planned she can get away with another five minutes.

She stitches littles bits of time together and decides she will give twenty minutes on a hectic morning to love Nicole because that is what she wants to do, and their lives will always be this way, busy and chaotic, schedules to keep, work to do, endless heaps of evil to defeat.

It’s up to them to look after the things they love.

*

At 6:30 AM, Nicole looks sheepish when Waverly jumps off her lap with a kind and chivalrous grin, disappearing hastily into the shower.

Nicole has to be at the station at 8 AM herself, and God, she wants to shower with Waverly, but Waverly is racing the universe for her with fast soapy hands.

After Nicole flushes, washes her hands and brushes her teeth, she stands by the shower curtain, trailing the backs of her fingers down the outside of it.

She goes into the room and pulls on a flannel shirt to stave off some of the cold and heads downstairs to the kitchen. It’s always dead silent in the homestead this early. She starts up the coffeemaker and boils water for tea.

She heats up a cast iron skillet, puts down a slab of coconut oil and gets to mixing flour, sugar, and baking powder for pancakes. She whisks in almond milk, vanilla extract and a dash of cinnamon, lets it sit for a few minutes, and listens to the sizzle of batter hitting the pan.

She gets four pancakes out of it and covers them to keep warm. She takes the kettle off the stove and sets Waverly’s tea to brew. She chooses two small Russet potatoes, scrubs them clean, then gets to grating them into a basin of cold water.

She thinks of Waverly as she faithfully rinses the starch out three times over. How she could not cook anything that would bring a smile to Waverly’s face for over a year and a half, how she taught herself all these recipes with no one but herself to nourish and how she barely managed it. How Rachel returned to find her still alone and took delight in judging her sporadic experimentations.

But Nicole only ever tasted ash and salt.

And afterwards, she would sit by Waverly’s bedside holding onto her photograph, telling a ghost about the things she learned for her if she would just come back home and try them.

If she closed her eyes long enough, she would feel Waverly’s hand in her hair, the phantom kiss on her cheek, and she would lay with Waverly framed in her arms and no matter how she willed the world to cave for her, it never did.

Rachel tipped her off about the junkyard, mentioned Mam Clanton, and when she’d gone to scope out the place, to buy materials for better traps, Margo wore her down, manipulated her pain with promises that seemed pure fiction at the time.

The brutality of the whole ordeal was knowing at every moment that she was being manipulated, aware of how she was being molded by another’s will into the weak, worthless shape of a lesser woman, bending at her knees in desperation and conceding all sense of dignity plainly for Margo’s amusement.

Nicole swipes her forearm harshly across her eyes and uses a tea towel to squeeze the grated potato dry and transfer it into a clean bowl.

She turns back to Waverly’s tea, adds a spoonful of sugar, a splash of almond milk, stirs and then pours it into a thermos to keep warm for Waverly’s long drive.

She grabs a large frying pan, turns the fire on under it and drizzles in a generous amount of oil to coat the inside, then sets out a cutting board to thinly slice a handful of spring onions, adding them to the potatoes. She sprinkles in salt, pepper, paprika, spices Waverly will appreciate, she adds flour, olive oil and remembers the cayenne at the last second. With a spoon, she folds the hash brown mixture together, shapes them into patties and places them in the hot pan.

The oil snaps and crackles, fries them golden brown and crispy. As Nicole flips each one, she thinks on the ghost of Waverly who sat at the kitchen counter, watching every movement, how she used to pretend Waverly was smiling at her, eager to be in the room with her, to be close to her.

She glances at the counter and struggles to breathe.

The ghost is fading. Every day, she fizzes in and out of existence, and Nicole is so desperate to see her go because Waverly is here again, and the ghost makes Nicole relive something she’s been praying to forget.

But a yearlong habit is a hard thing to break. The ghost is still beautiful, still makes her yearn. She closes her eyes and time wants to run away with her, but she forces herself to blink back into her body, to collapse into her skin and mobilize her bones. She doesn’t have to be skeletal anymore, if only she can claw back to who and to what she was before she woke up on a runaway train, groggy and drugged.

Before her body was shattered and her duty stolen and her life fell away so far from her grasp.

She takes the hash browns off the stove, covers them to keep warm next to the pancakes. She pours Waverly a glass of orange juice and pulls out the maple syrup from the cupboard, leaves it there with a knife, a fork.

She glances at the time: 6:55 AM. Waverly will try to run out of here any minute now.

The woman she loves requires more time.

She’ll carve it out for her. Bloody hands clutching the world’s ticking hour-hand to make it stand still for a goddamned second.

Nicole walks to the backdoor, pulls her coat off the hook, shrugging into it and pushing her feet into her work boots. She grabs the thermos of tea she prepared and Waverly’s keys. She goes into the backyard where the red Jeep is parked next to her new Purgatory Sheriff’s Department SUV. She opens the door to the Wrangler and climbs in, starting up the car. This old thing takes a good ten minutes for the engine to warm. She leaves the thermos on the passenger seat and gets out.

Nicole checks each tire, pushing a thumb and two fingers into the rubber to make sure all of them are firm and that the treads are not too worn out. Waverly never remembers to pump air into her tires and it’s caused two unnecessary flats since they got together.

Nicole deems the Jeep durable enough for Waverly’s trip and heads back inside.

She’s shedding her coat when Waverly rushes through the house, the heels of her elegant boots clicking into the kitchen.

She stops short at food on the table, fastening a silver watch around her dainty wrist.

“Car is warming, should give you a couple minutes to eat,” Nicole says, eyes roving over Waverly’s hunter green blazer, down the frilly striped blouse tucked loosely into her dark jeans. Her hair cascades over her shoulders, makeup soft and understated. “You look…”

She’s marvelous to stare at, deserves to be appreciated.

Nicole just wants the time.

It always revolves back to time.

She starts towards the table as she realizes Waverly is just standing there, looking hopeless and in love with her. It’s a look that makes her responsible for Waverly’s next moments, so she uncovers breakfast, grabs a plate and puts two pancakes and some hash browns on it for Waverly, pulls the chair out and watches as Waverly sits down slowly, pushing her hair safely out of the way.

Time slows as Waverly picks up her knife and fork. Nicole pours the maple syrup for her and Waverly nods that it’s enough.

“Won’t you eat?” Waverly asks after her first forkful, then she sighs and closes her eyes, tasting the sweet, then the savory. Nicole takes a plate for herself and sits. She uses her fork to break up a hash brown, dips it in syrup and brings it to her mouth, but she finds herself basking in Waverly’s enjoyment.

The small smile that Waverly directs at her between bites reminds her to eat as well.

She thinks Waverly knows that it’s healing, every moment spent together this way, in the quiet, just the two of them before the homestead bustles to life.

They had this before and they get to have it again. Nicole can’t fathom how she’d been without.

Waverly scarfs down the pancakes after an anxious peek at her watch. She chugs orange juice. “What time will you be home tonight?” Waverly asks. She tries to shove an entire hash brown into her mouth.

Nicole has to look away, then has to look back, it’s too precious.

“Should be home around seven if nothing comes up.”

“Something always comes up,” Waverly grouses around another hash brown. “Something’s come up every night since you returned to work.”

Nicole knows it’s true. She scoots onto the edge of her seat, drapes her arm over Waverly’s chairback and drops her head onto a strong, slender shoulder.

“I’m drowning,” she says, and it feels like asking. Waverly’s fingers card instantly through her hair, and it feels like her fingers had been there all along. A kiss lands on her temple. “I miss you and you’re right here.”

Strangely, she is mourning Waverly. The one that is sitting up in the room, in the photograph. The one she woke up to and reached for but could never touch.

“Nicole?” she hears softly by her ear. She blinks back to reality. Waverly smiles that wobbly smile, the one that holds fear, that signals to Nicole that she had gone somewhere else for a moment.

Waverly’s eyes fill with relief when their gazes connect and Nicole’s eyes clear of the haze.

“I can reschedule the interview,” Waverly is saying. She takes out her cell phone, but Nicole covers it.

She smiles at Waverly’s attentiveness. “Baby, go. You deserve to be amazing and when the new brass at BBD headquarters meets you, they’ll learn it for themselves. You deserve to be reinstated. No more helping the team for free. Come on.” Nicole stands up, pulling Waverly with her to the door. “The car is warmed up, there’s tea waiting for you. Go on.” She helps Waverly into her long coat, hugs her tight from behind and then ushers her out with her purse and a kiss goodbye. Waverly lingers a moment, clings to her, and it’s enough.

*

As Nicole gets dressed for work, she sees her in the mirror. A softer looking Waverly, fuzzy and out of focus, with that smile. The same tiny one she’s never let go of from across the porch that day.

_“Is it time?”_

No. No, Nicole thinks back to the Waverly that lives in her head. Not just yet.

_“Okay. A little longer then. Anything for my best baby.”_

“Thank you,” Nicole whispers.

*

Nicole gets off a rough phone call with Bunny Loblaw. She slams the phone onto its receiver. “Still a bitch, I see,” she mutters under her breath.

She can’t work like this, live like this, _breathe_ like this!

 _“Calm down, my love.”_ A flicker of a touch at her shoulder. Nicole closes her eyes, ashamed.

The door to her office flings open and Wynonna stomps in, throwing herself onto Nedley’s old couch. She supposes it’s her old couch now.

“I’m gonna kill baby Clanton!” Wynonna snarls. Nicole is up and out of her chair. “Third time she’s tried to murder me this month!”

Cleo vanished after the death of her mother and brother, but she’s still around, and she keeps coming after Wynonna. They’ve gotten into some nasty scrapes, the latest one leaves Wynonna sporting a bruise over her brow. Wynonna points at it. “She threw a rock at me. Go figure, a fucking Clanton would.”

Nicole drops into the cushions, shoulder to shoulder with Wynonna. They lean together at the same time, two friends.

“Well, you did kill off the last of her family.”

It’s a touchy subject. Nicole has heard Doc and Wynonna argue about it when they think no one is around enough times to gather that Wynonna is carrying around the weight of her choices with the weight of his judgement.

Cleo doesn’t know that it was Waverly who took Margo’s life, and during their first confrontation, Wynonna made sure Cleo scrambled away thinking only one Earp had destroyed her bloodline. Nicole’s gratitude outweighs everything. She couldn’t muster up a fault or a criticism if someone paid her to.

“You think I made the wrong choice?” Wynonna asks. Her voice trembles.

With Doc she has to hold strong, defend herself like she can’t give him an inch.

Here, in the safety of Nicole’s friendship, she is open about it, the doubt and the guilt.

“You made a choice,” Nicole says. “What I think? Holt played judge, jury, and executioner. Abused his badge beyond anything you could reason with. He had innocent blood on his hands long before he and Doc talked about peace, and a lot of it. You just caught up to him before someone else did.”

“I shot him in the back, Nicole.” Her hand drags shakily through the thick of her hair. “Fuck. I can’t get it out of my head, the way he looks at me like I…like I’m such a fuck up.” Wynonna laughs wetly and a dark expression crosses her face.

Nicole grips Wynonna’s knee hard. “Earp, he’s one person.”

Wynonna looks so distraught. “He was supposed to be my person.” It’s small the way Wynonna admits that.

“Hey.” Nicole goes soft for a moment. “He’s not your only person. Still got me.” Nicole raises a hand in the air. “Best friends?”

Wynonna rolls her eyes, but there’s an undeniable delight to the way she high-fives Nicole.

Nicole catches her hand in hers. “We’re gonna be okay. And Doc is gonna be okay, too. He needs to walk his path. You didn’t witness him at his worst. I nearly shot him for what he became, Wynonna. And what I remembered of him after you all were gone…it made it easy to justify the deal I made, and I’m living with that.”

Their hands fall apart.

“No one, literally no one blames you for anything that happened when we were gone, Haught. I’d have traded Doc too if my baby sister was on the line. Hell, would probably trade him for a donut right about now though, so maybe I’m not in the best mindset for this ultimatum.”

A chuckle rumbles through Nicole. Wynonna sits there with a small smile in response.

They’ll be okay. They have each other, they have Waverly.

“Someone say donuts?” a chipper voice calls from the office door that Wynonna had left ajar.

Waverly hangs there onto the handle, brown paper bag in that hand, holding up a box with the other. Wynonna launches up and grabs for the donuts with both hands like she’s summoned to it.

“A literal angel. You work miracles, babygirl!” 

Waverly hands the box over and Wynonna zips out of there with the goods as Waverly calls after her to please leave some for the others in the breakroom. She rolls her eyes, soft grin tugging at her lips as she looks to Nicole.

Nicole stands up off the couch and feels her world come into focus, fuller than it has all day.

Waverly clicks the door shut behind her, leans back against it and flips the lock, lifting the brown bag.

“Brought lunch for my best baby!”

Nicole closes her eyes. It’s so perfect.

_“Stay with us."_

She opens her eyes again. “I’m with you,” she says.

Waverly tilts her head curiously.

They meet in the middle and Waverly raises up for a kiss, informs Nicole between the presses of their lips that her interview went well and she’s waiting for a call back.

“Also, I stopped by your favorite place in the city,” she says against Nicole’s mouth.

Nicole pulls back in surprise. “Geronimo’s?” she asks, excited. Waverly would have had to drive an extra forty-five minutes. Jesus.

She grabs the bag and opens it. Sure enough there’s an eight inch sub wrapped in foil. She pulls it out and it’s still warm. There are fries to go with it and Nicole groans. “Christ, Waverly.” She has it unwrapped on her desk in seconds, spreading the toasted hoagie open to reveal thin cuts of seasoned ribeye steak, bell peppers, caramelized onions, mushrooms, smothered in melty as all hell cheese. “Their loaded Philly Cheesesteak.”

Nicole perches herself at the edge of her desk, forgoing the walk around to her chair, and she leans over to take too big a bite of the sandwich, humming into it as she chews.

Waverly’s soft exhale of laughter makes Nicole look up to see Waverly pulling out a fancy bottle of pineapple soda from her purse. “Oh my god."

She doesn’t drink soda often, but if she does, “Baby, you’re making my week,” she says as Waverly twists off the cap for her and hands it over. Nicole takes a long swig and she’s in heaven.

Waverly pours out the fries onto the foil paper and takes one for herself, not really eating, just holding it to her lips as she watches Nicole shove a few fries into her mouth followed by another messy bite of the Philadelphian delicacy.

Nicole crumples a napkin between her fingers, wiping her mouth every other bite and she’s careful to not to drip anything onto her uniform shirt.

Waverly braces a hip against the other side of Nicole’s desk and she finally pops the fry into her mouth.

When Nicole has made quick work of the entire sandwich, swigging back another sip of soda, she looks up to find that Waverly is silently crying into the palm of her hand.

Nicole nearly bruises her face with how hard she rubs the napkin across her mouth and chin, jerkily cleaning off her fingers as she jumps up to stand in front of her fiancée.

“Wave?” she asks, tossing the dirty napkin on her desk. Waverly nods as if to say she’s okay, but the silent cries start to catch sound. “Baby?” she tries again.

Waverly gestures at Nicole with her hand. “I’m sorry, Nic…you just haven’t been eating lately.”

“Oh fuck,” Nicole mutters and pulls Waverly hard into her arms. They hug each other tight and for such a long time that they’re both a little surprised when no one breaks them up; there’s no buzzing of Waverly’s phone to drag her away, no knock on the door for Nicole, no higher ups ringing her personal line, no dispatch coming through to crackle away on her radio and announce another random ass disaster.

The world doesn’t give much, but sometimes, it does go quiet.

“I’m so sorry.” Nicole sifts through her mind, tries to recall the last thing she ate. She didn’t touch the pancakes, and she’d only finished one of the hash browns, covered them up after Waverly left and Rachel made easy work of the rest.

She knows she’s eaten things here and there. Yesterday was cereal with milk in the morning, a muffin from the breakroom in the afternoon, coffee, lots of coffee, and for dinner she came home so dead that she just stood in front of the open fridge after eleven pm, nibbling on a chunk of cheese. She drank a glass of water before she trudged her way up the stairs for a shower.

Their lives are resembling what they were before, but trauma lingers in both their bodies. Nicole can’t sweep it under a rug, can’t pretend, and Waverly never compares her to the past. She nourishes her present, encourages their future.

Nicole does not like that she leaves Waverly alone in a room where they should be standing together.

She steels herself and steps back, tracing her thumb down the curve of Waverly's jaw, holding at her chin. She kisses each tear that falls and makes promises to every single one of them. “I’m coming home tonight. At seven. We'll have dinner together. You and me. Not just tonight, but tomorrow night, and the night after and the night after."

Waverly cries harder, hugs her longer, unbuttons her shirt just so she can rest her cheek against the bare skin of Nicole's chest.

Nicole thinks about their upcoming marriage and makes a commitment to it: home for dinner with her wife. Often.

The ghost fades a little more.


End file.
